Guardian Me­dia man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Nicholas Sab­ga yes­ter­day de­fend­ed the news­room and its re­porters in the wake of an at­tack on the me­dia by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Dur­ing the post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence on Thurs­day, Row­ley, as he re­spond­ed to what he claimed was bi­ased re­port­ing on the vis­it of Venezuela Vice-Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez, said there were no in­de­pen­dent me­dia hous­es in the coun­try and that the me­dia it­self was de­fend­ing the in­ter­est of its own­ers.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Sab­ga de­fend­ed the in­tegri­ty of Guardian Me­dia and the fra­ter­ni­ty as a whole.

“I be­lieve every­one is en­ti­tled to an opin­ion and that is what this is, an opin­ion,” Sab­ga said.

“Guardian Me­dia is com­mit­ted to jour­nal­ism and we must ask ques­tions to seek the truth. That is our job as one of the pil­lars of a democ­ra­cy. I be­lieve the jour­nal­ists must con­tin­ue on that path.

“We have an ed­i­to­r­i­al pol­i­cy which speaks to our jour­nal­is­tic in­tegri­ty and the free­dom of the press.”

Sab­ga said Row­ley had to “clear up” what he meant when he said that re­cent de­ci­sions tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment was im­pact­ing con­glom­er­ates’ bot­tom line.

“But I be­lieve this is noise and we need to get on­to the job at hand and that is build­ing this coun­try,” he said.

Sab­ga said the re­porters in the news­room need to an­swer whether their work is in­flu­enced or guid­ed by busi­ness in­ter­ests of the own­ers.

“Or per­haps they al­ready have,” he said.

“We in Trinidad have a rich cul­ture and his­to­ry in jour­nal­ism. If a jour­nal­ist be­lieved they were be­ing muz­zled or di­rect­ed/used they would let it be known.”

He said Guardian Me­dia al­so has an ed­i­to­r­i­al pol­i­cy which speaks to the in­de­pen­dence of its news­room.

“It is key to the fab­ric of what we have built in our over 100 years as a me­dia com­pa­ny that stands for the peo­ple and we will nev­er ab­di­cate that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty be­cause we are the voice of the voice­less,” he said.

“Politi­cians come and go, we are al­ways there look­ing af­ter the pub­lic’s in­ter­est.”

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) mean­while said it viewed Row­ley’s com­ment as un­for­tu­nate.

“As an in­di­vid­ual, he is free to hold an opin­ion, as a Prime Min­is­ter elect­ed by the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, he must have an ex­pec­ta­tion, as a mem­ber of Gov­ern­ment, of be­ing held ac­count­able.

“The po­si­tion of our Prime Min­is­ter is fa­mil­iar and over the decades the me­dia has been sub­ject­ed to sim­i­lar com­ments by our coun­try’s lead­ers. Prime Min­is­ters and gov­ern­ments change but me­dia re­mains. It is al­so nor­mal in an elec­tion year that ten­sion be­tween in­cum­bents and the me­dia height­ens. It is déjà vu chat­ter!” the TTP­BA said in a state­ment.

Not­ing that over the years the me­dia has ex­pe­ri­enced sim­i­lar at­tacks by politi­cians, the TTP­BA added, “Our jour­nal­ists re­main com­mit­ted to the pub­lic we serve and to the prin­ci­ples of truth with­out fear or favour. In a democ­ra­cy, the role of the me­dia is to hold our lead­ers ac­count­able and we must in­sist up­on trans­paren­cy.

“We be­lieve our news must be fair and bal­anced. Where there has been in­ac­cu­ra­cy, we cor­rect it. The me­dia is a re­flec­tion of our na­tion’s peo­ple. In a plur­al so­ci­ety such as ours with 36 ra­dio sta­tions, 3 dai­ly news­pa­pers, 10 lo­cal tele­vi­sion sta­tions and sub­scrip­tion tele­vi­sion, we seek to fill the mul­ti­tude of ap­petites. There is a dif­fer­ence be­tween “news” and com­men­tary, opin­ion and analy­sis which may have a per­spec­tive. These an­gles are meant to in­form the pub­lic we serve and to em­pow­er them be­cause they have the right to choose and make their own de­ci­sions on is­sues that af­fect their dai­ly lives.”